Bringing crocheted or knitted pieces to the public is usually saved for arts and crafts fairs. For the West Flamingo Yarn Storming Group, based out of the West Flamingo Active Adult Center, knitting and crocheting has become a mission of public art.

Yarn storming is the art of creating small cozies to adorn urban landscape, cheering up otherwise bare, concrete environments with bright colors and patterns. The mission of the West Flamingo group is to improve the landscape one stitch at a time by creating temporary yarn creations to beautify the West Flamingo center and park. Railings, lamp and signposts, bike stands and tree trunks are the likely canvases, but automobiles, buses, motorcycles, bridges, statues and other large objects have been “stormed” in cities around the world.

The West Flamingo Yarn Stormers’ first project is to cover various railings and signposts on the center’s grounds. The group plans to work on a large temporary public art project to be installed for the 2012 International Yarn Storming Day on June 11, 2012.

Kids can spend the summer learning a new language at summer camps open now at Town Square.

Camp Lango offers lessons in Spanish, French and Mandarin for kids 4 to 12. The classes are full immersion which means the class will be taught entirely in the language with very little English used. Teachers will use music, art, games, reading and drama to instruct kids in the language. 

“Children should start to learn a foreign language before their developmental linguistic window closes, which is around age 10,” said Karyn DePari, Camp Lango leader. “This enables them to ‘absorb’ the language, thus producing embedded knowledge and authentic accents. Research shows that learning a foreign language increases grades in Math and English and results in higher SAT scores.”

Camp is from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., Monday through Friday. The camps cost $229. Extended care is available for an extra $50.

Spanish Camp